Bodacious Boomer

I live in a Houston suburb.  When we first came to Katy we moved into the “big house”, you know the house you get after your starter house. In our case, it was a huge two-story that everybody but me wanted, 4 bedrooms, screened in spa room, the whole shebang.  Everybody in the neighborhood there took pride in their homes and their yards reflected it. That was a good thing too because there was a management company who’s sole job was to make sure all the deed restrictions were enforced. In addition to the managment company checking on all the homes, there was also a neighbor who took great delight in being the neighborhood snitch.

Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a rural or semi-rural area or an area that was established before the advent of HOA’s, you know who that person is.  Every neighborhood has one. In my case it was actually a woman who lived just down the block, Benita. Her poor, perpetually hen-pecked husband we nicknamed “Nub”  (because she’d worn him down), made enough money that she didn’t have to work. She was the self-appointed righter-of-wrongs in the subdivision. She’d actually park her car in front of each house and sit there with a clipboard noting the most miniscule things that she could report. Had one of the numbers fallen off your mailbox? Were the blades of grass in your lawn not all facing the same direction? I slept soundly at night, always safe in the knowledge that these most vital issues of life would soon be addressed by her in a memo I’d receive.

It’s not like I had an old car set up on blocks in the driveway or anything. I didn’t open a combination taco stand and shoe repair shop in the front yard. Without fail though Benita would find, something, anything to denote in her little black book. (This was stuff the management company didn’t even fret over). The best I could figure out, Benita suffered from terminal pain-in the butt syndrome combined with complete frigidity. She wasn’t like anyone I’d ever known. Perhaps she came from a pod, like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I saw that first when it came out in 1956 in black and white. It scared the wazoo outta me. (I had to sleep with the light on for a month and I always checked my closet before I got in bed).

Eventually Benita’s husband retired and moved them to the boonies, probably just to irritate her. Rumour has it that her new neighbors are running an ongoing “estate” AKA yard sale. Last I heard, Benita was doing a good imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West, except these days she didn’t have anyone to point her bony finger at while she said “I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too”. Without an HOA to snitch to she’s probably just beside herself. I just wish I could see it. Today’s trivia answer-Iceland.